This invention relates to a device connected to a control system including a plurality of components connected by a network for setting up the control system to which it is connected.
Programmable controllers (PLCs) are coming to be commonly used as a control device for factory automation (FA). Such a programmable controller is formed in many situations as an appropriate combination of a plurality of units of various kinds such as a power unit for supplying electrical power, a CPU unit for controlling the entire PLC, an input unit for receiving signals from input apparatus such as switches and sensors that are set at appropriate positions on a production apparatus or an equipment apparatus for the FA, an output unit for outputting control signals to output apparatus such as actuators, and a communication unit for connecting to a communication network. These input and output apparatus are not limited to those that are connected directly to the input or output unit but may be connected to a slave such as an IO terminal such that the connection is made to the PLC from such a slave through the network.
The control by the CPU unit of a PLC is carried out by cyclically repeating the processes of taking in a signal obtained by the input unit to the I/O memory of the CPU unit (IN-refresh), carrying out a logical calculation based on a user program formed by a preliminarily registered ladder language (calculation execution), writing the results of the calculation execution into the I/O memory and transmitting them to the output unit (OUT-refresh), and thereafter carrying out the so-called peripheral processes. The user program is usually created by means of a programming tool for the PLC and downloaded to the CPU unit.
Program parts (or function blocks) which are combinations of a plurality of commands are sometimes used when a user program is created for a PLC. In such a case, it is a programming tool for the PLC that manages the program parts for the PLC. An example of such a programming tool for a PLC using function blocks is described in International Patent Publication Pamphlet 2002/079886.
It also happens sometimes to monitor not only the conditions of the PLC itself but also the operating conditions of the entire control system controlled by the PLC by observing the operating conditions of the PLC such as the contents of the IO memory and to set or update parameters of the PLC by writing data into the IO memory. Such monitoring and setting operations may be carried out by means of a programmable display adapted to display monitored data by its function component for making graphic displays on its display screen and to input set data through a touch panel on the function component. These monitoring and setting operations may be carried out not only for the PLC but also for other components. In order to make the programmable display operable, it is necessary to preliminarily program the contents of the display screen, that is, which functional components are to be used and with the IO memory of which component each functional component should be correlated. Such programming is carried out by means of a programming tool for the human-machine interface.
The functional component necessary for the programming of the contents of display by the programmable display is managed by the programming tool for the programmable display. Japanese Patent Publication Tokkai 2001-75616 describes an example of such a programming tool for a programmable display. Japanese Patent Publication Tokkai 2001-53763 describes an example of a tool for setting up a network.
Conventionally, it was necessary, when a network-setting tool was used for network setting, to carry out the work of specifying the component to be connected to the network and, when the programming of a PLC or a programmable display was to be carried out independent of this work, to carry out the work of distinguishing function blocks and functional components that are utilizable in correlation with the components connected to the network by using a tool for that purpose. For this reason, the work of programming was inefficient. It is therefore an object of this invention to improve the efficiency of programming work by correlating the work of network setting with the work of programming the PLC and the programmable display.